Patients are suffering because of a lack of NHS-funded research in Wales, a leading Cardiff professor was due to warn today.

Wales receives just 1.6 per cent of all available NHS research funding in the UK - five times less per person than Scotland and half as much as England.

Professor Nick Craddock, a professor of psychiatry at Cardiff University, said that devolution had made the funding allocations worse.

The disparity between Wales and the rest of the UK, highlighted by the UK Clinical Research Collaboration figures, could mean that patients are not only missing out on new forms of treatment, but they are not benefiting from the latest developments in health services.

And there are fears that unless the balance is restored, Wales could lose some of its best researchers to other, better-funded parts of the UK.

Prof Craddock, who was due to speak at an inaugural meeting the Research Network Cymru today, said: 'Wales is disadvantaged by major under-investment.

'This lack of funding for health research and development in Wales is bad for our patients, bad for our health service, bad for our academic institutions and bad for our economy.

'If steps are not taken things will continue to deteriorate in relation to the rest of the UK, which is likely to result in the best of our researchers and health professionals moving out of Wales.'